1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to file systems in general and more particularly to distributed file systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
A file system is a method for storing and organizing files to make it easy to find and access the data stored in those files. Traditionally, file systems have been implemented using a single piece of software performing all functions of organizing and keeping track of files in the file system. Such file system software generally has to be capable of resolving naming issues, authenticating client users/applications, loading and storing data to physical storage devices, and any other task related to the file system. File system software is frequently included as part of an operating system to allow applications of the operation system to access data files. Hierarchical file systems allow applications to store and group data files in directories using a tree structure. Generally, file system software is implemented as a single, discrete, piece of software and the files managed by the file system software are typically stored on a single storage device, such as a hard-drive, frequently connected directly to the machine executing the file system software. The different operations of the file system software are typically implemented as different functions in the file system software. Communication between different functions of file system software is generally performed using direct function calls using file system specific parameters.